Things We Saw Today: How to Buy Books Online From Indie Booksellers Instead of Amazon

Books!

We know what you’re going through. You’re stuck at home and you’re bored and you just want to enjoy some damn BOOKS. But how? Brick and mortar stores are shut down and Amazon is, to put it lightly, f*cking evil. So what are you going to do? Well, hope is here. You can support your local, independent bookstores (and stick it to Jeff Bezos) by buying your books from Bookshop.

Bookshop is a relatively new site that launched right before the coronavirus shutdown hit, and thank goodness it did, because it’s giving a lifeline to many local, small booksellers. The biggest advantage that Amazon has over small, local sook store is an online, easy-to-use platform and streamlined service.

According to Bookshop’s CEO and founder Andy Hunter, when speaking with Inside Hook: “There are almost 2,000 bookstores in the country, and only about 150 of them have good online shopping platforms. That leaves a lot of stores that haven’t adapted, and Amazon’s kind of eating their lunch.”

Which is where Bookshop comes in. It allows you to easily order books from indie stores. Bookstores sign up to sell through Bookshop and 30% of the profits got to them. That’s not as much as the 40% to 45% they get selling themselves but it’s better than nothing, especially if a shop doesn’t have a robust online presence.

While Amazon is using their energy smearing labor organizer in their warehouses, many indie bookstores are struggling to scrape buy after being forced to close. Powell’s Books in Portland, the countries largest and most famous indie bookstore, laid off nearly all of their staff when Oregon non-essential business was ordered to shut down. They then hired 100 back to fill a flood of online orders. This shows how important online sales will be for the store during this time.

So, if you’re looking to buy some books, check out Bookshop and support local, non-evil bookstores as much as you can!

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Jessica Mason (she/her) is a writer based in Portland, Oregon with a focus on fandom, queer representation, and amazing women in film and television. She's a trained lawyer and opera singer as well as a mom and author.